Can Rick Porcello carry over his late-season success?

Tuesday

Jan 26, 2016 at 3:16 PM

Tim Britton Journal Sports Writer timbritton

BOSTON — Rick Porcello does not tantalize. A Red Sox fan's reveries about this rotation behind David Price probably revolve around Eduardo Rodriguez blossoming further, or maybe even Joe Kelly or Clay Buchholz being their best more consistently.

Porcello isn't going to be an ace, per se, and if you watched him last year, you know this self-evidently. But of all those rotation pieces behind Price, Porcello may have the best chance of stepping into that No. 2 role, and it's because of what he showed down the stretch of 2015.

Now, you know the usual qualifications that come with late-season success. The quality of competition varies more than at other times in the year, and too often easy narratives emerge from small-sample noise. A banner that reads "NEVER TRUST SEPTEMBER EVALUATIONS" should hang somewhere in every major-league front office.

Porcello's success over the final six weeks of an otherwise miserable 2015 season, however, possesses more reasons for sustainability than the usual late-season flourish. His numbers down the stretch were merely solid and not spectacular — a 3.14 ERA over his final eight starts. But that’s exactly what the Red Sox want and need from the right-hander.

"That was huge for me," Porcello said of his final six weeks Saturday at Red Sox Winter Weekend. "As much as I wouldn’t like to admit it, that time off [on the disabled list], mentally more than anything, helped me get back to thinking the way I normally think when I’m on the mound and slowing everything down. Refining myself that last month is something I’ll use as a springboard coming into this season. It’s something I’ve been thinking about the entire offseason, the adjustments I’ve made and carrying that into this year and not changing a lot from what I did the last 10 starts or so."

Porcello's late-season success appears more sustainable than that of, say, Joe Kelly because he was a fundamentally different pitcher during that time. This is well-covered ground, but it's worth going back over: For much of the season, Porcello had been seduced into throwing his four-seam fastball more often, looking to work it above the strike zone and add another dimension to his usual sinker-heavy mix. In the process, he left way too many fastballs up in the zone — that’s why his home run numbers spiked — and lost command of his sinker almost entirely. He wasn’t Rick Porcello anymore.

"I lost track of what I did well in the past," he said. I started elevating the ball too much and got away from my approach. I just got lost in that in the middle of the season last year. I was able to come out of it and finish up the season throwing the ball the way I know how to. As much as it sucked, I think it was a good thing for me to go through."

Over those last eight starts, he went back to the repertoire that had allowed him to succeed for most of his tenure in Detroit. Through his first 20 starts — during which he was 5-11 with a 5.81 ERA — Porcello threw his four-seam fastball about 31 percent of the time and his two-seam sinker about 34 percent, according to Brooks Baseball. Over the last eight, he threw the four-seamer just 18 percent of the time, compared to 49 for the sinker.

"First and foremost, [it was] getting back to keeping the ball down and sinking the ball, especially early in the count," he explained. "Trying to get weak contact early in the count is my strength. That’s where we start. And if you get to a two-strike count or in a situation where you need a swing-and-miss, you understand those situations and that’s what you have to go for. You take a shot at the swing-and-miss, but the important part is not getting carried away with it, maintaining your strengths and also being able to use that part of the game, too."

Locating that sinker down in the zone generates weak contact on the ground and keeps the ball in the park. Over Porcello's first 20 starts, he allowed 1.57 homers per nine innings with a 45.1 percent ground-ball rate. In the last eight starts, he was down to 0.79 homers per nine and up to 53.1 percent on ground balls.

Porcello is never going to be a dominant pitcher who cruises through opposing lineups. Being a ground-ball pitcher necessarily means that some of those ground balls will find voids in the defense, and even during that closing stretch, he yielded more than a hit per inning pitched.

But singles are better than the extra-base hits he surrendered while up in the zone, and ground balls also lead to a fair share of double plays. Consequently, a strand rate that stood among the worst in the game in late July regressed back toward the league average down the stretch.

Furthermore, that sinker accentuates the effectiveness of Porcello's secondary offerings, especially his changeup. Porcello elicited more swing-and-misses with his change in the last eight starts than the first 20.

"Really, everything fell into place once I came back," Porcello said.

Those are the things that made Porcello successful with the Tigers and that made him appealing to the Red Sox last winter in the first place.

So much of baseball analysis in January through March is pondering the sustainability of trends from last season, of discerning the difference between a signal and all the noise. Was Jackie Bradley, Jr.'s August real or just a mirage? What about Kelly's? Can Henry Owens pitch like this consistently?

For the Red Sox, nothing presents itself as a more logical signal of longer-term viability than Porcello's late-season reversion to his former self. And maybe that can be just the slightest bit tantalizing for Boston.